Home
yes, the sandwich is made   
03:01pm 30/12/2009
  I made a sandwich today
without using any bacon

Well, technically there was
bacon in the two strips of topping-
bacon, and there was
bacon in the
bacon double-cheese-
flavored bacon

but just a little, and I guess the
bun had bits of flecked
bacon as a sprinkled-bacon bacon-topping, but over

all the sandwich was
one hundred percent
bacon-free		  
     Post
 
so there is this book of poems   
10:56pm 21/11/2009
  There I was and I was reading this book of poems, and it is a book of poems in where the poems selected for the book of poems are poems in which the poems are accessible.

And as I read this book.
This book of poems.
This book of accessible poems.
As I read I realised that I don't like accessible poems.

Oops, I misspoke:

Any longer.		  
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buckets of salt   
11:51pm 04/11/2009
  Whole Foods has buckets of salt.
Bath salts.

Whole foods has a display with entire buckets
of entire salts.

I shall say seven, seven buckets of bath salt, all in a ring
in a ring are seven buckets
each bucket
salt. bath.

Each salt is a different color,
each color a different scent
a sign on a pole stabbed into each with a scent name
a scoop in each

Each sign to intice,
each scoop to draw you in.
I fit in your hand so eas-i-ly.

I was not drawn in, I walked past --
ha!
take THAT!
I do not fall for you!
-- to get Turkish apricots

or almost, that is almost true
so close to being true, the what if
What if I had not stopped?
What if I kept going like my brain, body, spirit, soul said keep going

but there was one thing, one so-small thing, so nothing as to make it so my reason for stopping was a tissue stopping a train, a dandelion stopping a gun.

Patchouli
Again: Ha!

that word of hippies
and the 1990s version of the 1960s
Grateful Dead at Soldier Field
several times
I forget what that smells like.
So I took the scoop, a scoop of bath salts
and strangely it did not smell like Patchouli oil

But it was nice, the smell was nice, I'd even be glad to take a bath in it.

You know those supercolliders? They take an atom and whoosh it around a ring miles round.
I had just sniffed Patchuli
the first
in a ring
and there were seven buckets, why not
why not?
why not...
just one more

one more then you can go on your way to get Turkish apricots, just one more bucket of colored bath salts, and look

This next one...
oooOOoo...

(silver scoop brightly polished - I am made for your hand
tin bucket, solid build -- bath salts strong and sturdy)

This next one was what?

Cinnamon?
I forget.
Wintergreen?
I forget.
Grapefruit?
Ha! No! I skipped that one.
Passionfruit?
Sandlewood?
Menthol?
So powerful, too mint.

I forget the order, Menthol, bleh.
The rest I liked
though I skipped grapefruit, why skip a nice scent?
(I had seen this film already [poor excuse])
I sniffed each bucket to circle to the end of the ring

Satisfyed I snuffed out the last scoop into the last bucket,

and Patchoili was the next, and

the end is the beginning
and

Poof
p - o - o - f,

time to buy apricots		  
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it makes more sense at three a.m.   
02:39am 09/08/2009
  it turns out I was right

it turns out
what I said
all that I said what
I said

it was true

I said
what I said was
was what I said

was what?

here:
we are all doomed

and it turns out
as it all turned out
it turns out it was

all of it was

all of it was was all was it was
was true		  
     Post
 
spheres   
05:50pm 11/07/2009
  One sphere falls.

A cube contains spheres, they are larger than one might expect. One might grab one,
might grab a pink,
might grab a light blue,
might hold a sphere in ones hand,
might let it fall.

A fellow traveller zooms by as a sphere is chosen, and all the calculations change, what had the intent of fun now has the intent of looking like intented fun. Something's missing, it's taken away, something critical, so critical, when the observer is added.

One sphere, taken in hand,
and set
and ready
and released.

This sphere falls.

This sphere, it falls and turns a little in the air as it goes -- *poom* solid ground, and of course the reason the sphere was released was for what it was to do after it hit, and the sphere performs as was excepted. There is no joy, the show is a show now.

And the traveller who was passing by did not care anyway, and the taker of the sphere did not care anyway, and this is all dumb.

But despite the disappointment of having had a moment stolen away (cf. stranger, traveller), there was still fun, still playing with spheres, spheres and ground and *poom*.

Thus they keep making spheres
and selling spheres
and putting them out in a box.		  
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HOOTIE ! ! ! !   
09:31am 09/01/2009
  It is an all-Hootie Friday!!!!

I am listening to nothing but Hootie And The Blowfish today!! From wake up till I set my head on the pillow tonight. Nothing but the greatest party band of the 80s, 90s, and today!!!! PARTY WITH DARIUS RUCKER!!!! GOLF!!! SOUTH CAROLINA!!!!

There is the slight problem that I do not own any Hootie and the Blowfish and the radio does not play them anymore, so right now I am listening to Supertramp instead, but still... Hootie!!! ...all...day...LONG!!!!.		  
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and the streets do empty   
07:50pm 01/01/2009
  I spent my New Year's eve in a sort of depression. Around 8 p.m. I realised that if I did not do something I would just die right then of lonliness. I texted my youngest brother. I had planned on staying in, he said I could come with with him, but the restaurant was sold out, but he found a place for me to go instead.

A country/western bar. A dive bar with hardcore locals. And ironic indie kids. I am not sure which camp I fall into anymore. I am all alone in a country and western bar on New Year's Eve.

In the bar. I had not eaten. Kitchen open late, the magazine guide my brother had read to me had said. Well, our grill is closed, but I'll deep fry something for you. Onion rings. Turns out that was perfect.

Lots of texting to others, some more miserable than me, others having more fun.

I ended up staying an hour, I left at 11:30 p.m. knowing I would miss the ball drop.

Crud! I forgot I had a point here. But I'll tell one more pointless digressive story.

I am walking towards the bus stop, and a young couple stop me, and the male of the species asks for a light. I carry a lighter for such occasions, and I don't say much, and he makes a little small talk, so I talk small, the female of the species says a drunken "happy new year" and I wake up just a tad from auto-pilot and wish her a happy new year, and ask if they are headed to a party. Male: "No, we are headed back to my place." Me, way over enthusiastic: "Good luck, dude!" Dude laughs, girl laughs. They giggle and continue on.

Here is my point, here is what I meant to type all along, you can skip all you have read before.

So, the point.

I am waiting for the bus. It is 20 minutes before midnight. I don't give a fig that I'll miss midnight's stroke. There are lots of bars in the area (I'm by the Green Mill at this point) and people everywhere.

Smokers outside bars, walkers walking between bars. Cars and cabs all over the streets. No one cares it is new year's? Maybe I am in good company here.

Ten to midnight. No bus. Cold. Very cold. Hands numb. Check the cell phone now and then for texts. None. But Swiss time keeps marching on. Cars and people everywhere. Hands on the clock about to meet.

11:57 p.m. This is three minute before midnight. And wow. It was amazing. Were I in a crappy country/western bar I would have missed this. This is my solar eclipse. This is my Woodstock, my own personal little miracle that came out of a night of depression, that you, dear reader, will never see no matter how many midnights come from here till death's day.

11:57 p.m. the streets empty. Zombie town. All human life is gone. Even the roads are close to completely empty.

Not 100% empty. But where did the cabs and cars disappear to? That was the most baffeling.

Almost not a soul on the streets. People I was for sure dead positive had no clue what time it was, they are gone. The panhandler guy? Gone. 11:57 p.m. and all the streets are empty in Chicago near the Green Mill.

Tick, tick, tick. Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine. Sixty.

I am not fully paying attention: BOOM! Fireworks at Navy Pier. Oh, right, midnight.

Noisemakers in the Grill Mill. Noisemakers in the Angry Pug. A group of toasters toasting at the Ethiopean resturant (seriously, the chess club in high school would have a cooler New Year's Eve than the Ethiopian restaurant was having, and this from a guy who spent it waiting for a bus).

So though I pretty much missed an entire New Year's Eve, and maybe only the 3rd time in my life missing an official network broadcast of a countdown. I got to see this rare, strange event of people who I thought were not paying attention, actually paying synchronatic attention and all rushing in to be near a TV. It is midnight in Chicago.

The end.		  
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last day   
12:53am 27/12/2008
  There on the last day the floods came; the great walls of ice held in the water; the giggling bands stood over the shoes as they dried.

It was the last day ever (tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life) and the outside was warm and cold at the same time. The fogs were in, the waters were on their way (says the news!) to warsh away the floods, and after a bad soaking of the feet, which left the heels in pain, and then later resoaked by nature, and then left to dry. Always left to dry. Dry alone in an empty hallway, taken off before entry. Stay there, you may not tread my carpet. I have groceries to put away. Forgotten.

The oven was on, the meat sizzled and seared; in one room a keyboard clicked. Outside, in the hall, the shoes all alone, their only crime stepping on too many flooded sidewalks, navigating sheets of melting ice, a gaggle of voices approached. They giggled. Friday night, they would be going out to a bar. They laughed at the shoes in the hallway, so carefully lain by the door to keep them from out of underfoot. Consideration for others taken to be fussiness. The gigglers giggled, and inside, the typing stopped for a moment, ears strained to make out the words. The meat in the oven sizzled.

On the last day ever, the shoes got taken in. No need to throw on pants over the boxer shorts, the hallway had been quiet for hours. In the tomorrow, in the morning (reallly: late late night), the gigglers shall return. The shoes shall be gone, and the night ends with things running an ersatz reverse, they shall not notice the shoes gone, they just shall walk down the hallway back to start's beginning, prolly not even realiseing that the last day ever is over, and another day has begun. They shall not realize that the shoes are now in the kitchen, that the meat has been consumed.

Time marches on.		  
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remember?   
04:33pm 11/12/2008
  Remember that one day during the summer where I was feeling pretty crappy and I said that I was feeling fatally ill and that I was pretty sure that I would not live to see the sun set? Well, it turns out, and you will be kind in your ever-kindness-bordering-on-nagging to here note that it was not but a once but a several times, and as I type this I can hear your voice in my head suggesting that it was not even just a mere several times, but rather pretty much every day for the entire summer...

Let me start over, this sentence has gotten complicated to the point that even I, a mere author, can no longer follow.

You know how every day for the entire summer I said nearly every day that I felt deathly ill, and it was not just possible but likely and even probable that I would not live to see the sun set, or if this were uttered at night that I shall not see to see the sun rise? Or if it were cloudy then to see a time agreed upon by international standards to represent local sun rise data or sun set data of a historical and statistical nature? Remmebr that?

Too complicated again. Let me retype.

You know this summer, when I was deathly ill and unlikely to see the next sun rise? Well, it turns out I was wrong.

Just thought I'd let you know.		  
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What it's like   
11:15pm 13/10/2008
  What is it like?

It is like I go to shut down my computer, and the mini-screen pops up and asks if I want to shut things down completely or could I try for a more compassionate reboot?, and I pause a moment, and as it waits for me to decide, the deskpicture behind everything starts to fade, and the colors warsh out towards grey, and I enjoy the loss a little, and I watch as it gets even more grey, and I start to feel a little uneasy, and it keeps losing colors until it's totally grey, or what I think is totally grey, and yet it keeps on losing colors that I don't think even exist and in ways I shall never understand,

and,
as far as I can tell,
this will go on
forever.

That is what it is like.		  
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fun on the train   
06:16pm 01/10/2008
  I think this is the case where just asking the question was more fun than the answer, but here goes:

I was taking the El home, that is the Chicago train, and there was a woman carrying a human head in her arms, this was rush hour so no one seemed at all disturbed or even curious about it, but I was, so at some point I went up and asked her the obvious question.

Me: Excuse me, I am curious, why are you carrying a human head?

Woman: She is not human, she is plastic.

Me: Oh, I see. Well, why are you carrying a human plastic head?

Woman: I'm a cosomotology student.

She then waved generally at the hair style on the human plastic head, which I shall admit was done with rather verve and gusto.

I wanted to ask more about it, for example why call it "she" and not "it" if it was not human, but I had pretty much pushed my luck even getting that much information and the woman was pretty set on listening to her iPod.

So if you are on the train, and see people carrying human heads, they are not carried by pillagers out to defend the ritious from the darned. Nope. They are cosmotology students.

The end.		  
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and unpleasant wetness   
07:43pm 13/08/2008
  I boarded the bus, moved towards the back, even though I knew the bus would not be crowded (common courtesy) and I sat down.

Wet.

Ugh.

I sat in wetness. Once I registered that I had sat in wetness I had to flee the seat in undo haste, and so as I did I stepped what I thought was "up" but turned out to be the same level I was on and I sprawled to the floor.

The bus was not crowded, which I think makes this story a little worse. If it were a crowded bus I would seem eccntric or drunk, something to be shrugged off by observers, but that part of the bus held only me and a young lady, so now I appear eccentric *and* drunk *and* likely to be dangerous! Not even "possibly" but LIKELY. I tried to play it cool to not get maced or escorted by cops or anything like that.

I got myself off the floor, and my buttox is wet, and I wonder what the heck I sat in, and I have to assume pee first, but the mind kind of goes on. And by the time we have gone a mile, the scenario comes into my head that a woman was very pregnant and got on the bus as labour pains convulsed her, and before she could get to the nearest hospital, she gave birth right there on that seat, wit amniotic fluid soaking in for the next dozen unsuspecting passengers.

I did do the kindness of writing a note: "WARNING: WET SEAT" and leave it there. But the seat does not *look* wet, so I know others will sit there anyway.

Meanwhile I have pants soaked in this stuff. When I got home I sniffed it. (Yes, I know, How horrible, what is wrong with you?) and it is not pee, so then by simple elimnation I figure it is likely amniotic fluid which means I am best off just burning these pants.

And that is my unadventerous adventure of another rather slow week.		  
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tube worms   
12:25am 09/08/2008
  Since these things had not been discovered yet when I was in 6th grade, and I think I would have liked them as a 6th grader, I shall write a book report here on tube worms, using my 6th grade writing style.

-- -- --

Tube Worms Are Cool

a book report

by the Mur

Tube worms are neat. They live in the ocean. They live way way deep in the ocean. They live six miles underwater, that is very deep.

Tube worms live near thermal vents in the ocean, which is where the Earth is splitting apart and making sulpher.

Tube worms sounds boring, they do not do too much, they just grow, they do not even eat anything, and are not worms, they look like GIANT worms, they can be 8 feet long!!!!!!! But they are not worms, or even ammimmals.

But what makes them even more not worms is they have no mouths. And they have no guts. They cannot take a poo. Or even pee.

In fact!!! they are not ammimmals at all!!! THey are also not plants!!! They are strange other things.

Tube worms are so strange that they get their own version of being alive. Phyllum is how you tell a difference between a dog and a cactus. Humans, cows, and animals like that go together in a phyllum, ferns and chrysanthemums and ammimmals like that go together in a phyllum, and then tube worms go all by themselves. That is pretty rare!!!!!

They do not eat anything, and it is too dark at the ocean bottom to get sunlight to make photosyneteheasaaeassis. Instead they have a secret chamber inside them that turns sulpher stuff into carbohydrates! Lets see our teacher do that!! (ha ha!)

In conclusion, tube worms are pretty cool, they are not worms, they are their own phyllium. And you should read about them. (I guess you just did!!!)

The end.		  
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what it's like   
12:21am 07/08/2008
  What it's like.

It's like it is a summer day and a friend invites you to his house for dinner. His wife is in the kitchen getting things ready; you and your friend go out back to take down mosquito netting.

You talk about baseball and then their kids and then have interactions like:

"Do oyu like French Fries?"

"Sure, of course, though I guess I have always been more of a mashed potaotes kind of guy."

"Yeah, I can relate to that."

And you talk of politics and other things of no weight, getting the mosquito netting all where it needs to be, then you get the yard all tidied up, and head back inside.

You step in the door and your friend turns to his wife, "He doesn't like French fries, he wants mashed potaotes."

And you say, "That is not what I said at all, I like fries."

The wife says, "Oh, I went to the Farmer's Market and got Burbank Russets to make fries just for tonight. But I guess I can whip up some mashed potatoes for you."

And you say, "No, fries are good. I don't need mashed potatoes, I was just making idle conversation in the yard."

And though dinner was pretty much ready, she gets out the peeler and makes mashed potatoes just for you.

And the French fries she made for everyone else look mighty good.

And you are an jerk if oyu eat the mashed potatoes she made, and you are a bigger jerk if you don't.

That is what it is like.		  
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quiet lake, distant storms   
10:25pm 14/07/2008
  I sat by the lake today to read. I had taken the bus home since I was too tired to walk, and the bus let me off on the far side of the world -- which here means the lake. (the other direction from my apartment is all streets and crowds and buildings for miles and miles.)

I sat and read a bit. Well, first I looked at the lake, and looked at the boats comeing in and out of the harbor. Then I looked at the trees, and the people walking by. The sun was out, though I was in the shade; there was a nice breeze blowing.

I read a bit. It was nice.

When I got home I fired up the computer and was chatting with someone in Virginia. He was in a coffee shop. He said it was gloomy there. The coffee shop was gloomy, the weather outside was cold and rainy.

And I could not put the two ideas together in my head. The weather was too nice in Chicago. I had no idea it could be anything but perfect everywhere in the world.		  
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The Mur Bon Jovi   
11:33pm 24/05/2008
  I warshed my hair with the intent to let it dry then go out to get ice cream bars.

Saturday night, and still recovering from the flu, I warshed my hair, night, night, and night, with the intent to let it dry. I was feeling cooped up, and a trip to the store seemed a good idea, not too taxing.

I warshed my hair. I laid down. The phone rang.

I laid down, with wet hair and chatted on the phone.

You see where this is going.

I laid down with wet hair, the phone rang, and I talked a long time on the phone with wet hair while laying down.

Hair is a tricky thing. Hair has memory properties.

Phone is a tricky thing. Phone has me lay my arm across my forehead as I chat.

I am not a good phone chatter.

I talked on the phone a while, and my arm lay on my forehead, and the wet hair was all pulled back, and my hair dried that way.

After the call, I got up and got dressed and looked in the mirror.

The hair, my normal straight, normal hair (normal!), was now poofed up in a Bon Jovi feathering.

More than feathering, it was full-blown stage-pyrotecnices Poison, Bon Jovi, Winger hair.

First I brushed it down with my hands. The hair would not oblige. *POOF*

Thus, on a Saturday night, when home all alone, and travelling to get ice cream bars to not feel the weight of the walls closing in on me, on such a Saturday night, I travelled out in public, in plain view of the masses of people strolling on a warm spring night. On such a night, I went out with fully feathered '80s pop-metal hair.

And I kind of enjoyed it.

The end.		  
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What it's like   
07:21pm 21/05/2008
  It is like you are in the grocery store buying things and find oyurself in the sauce and condiment aisle (which is always a baffling section) and there is Famous Dave's Texas Pit BBQ sauce, and you remember you just ran out of it in the fridge at home, and so you buy a bottle and store it in your cubbord once you return home where it is not touched for several weeks.

You finally make something which requires BBQ sauce and it is only then, as you eat, that you remember you don't particularly like Famous Dave's Texas Pit BBQ sauce, and why you have not had many things which require BBQ sauce in the past year and a half.

That is what it is like.		  
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what it's like   
09:57am 11/05/2008
  The water is heated.

The tea leaves drop in

It steeps

We drink the tea

Many times have we done this before

Many times will we do it again.

And each time the tea is good.

Yet, each time unique.

And it is not the tea which is different

It is tea from the tea which was drank before and before

Going back centuries

--

and yet

from then till

now, we...

we have a different way to process the water

we have a different way to make the cups, the pot, the strainer

we have a different way to package the tea

a different way to transport the tea

to farm the tea

--

And yet

We sit in our own skin

And have made the same choices

Going back for centuries

Going back our forty-some years

It is we who are the same

--

The tea is different,

the same.

as are we


this is what it is like		  
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old man   
12:34am 10/05/2008
  My brother had our first "we are old men" conversation today.

He: I just saw American Gangester last week, it had Gladiator guy in it.

Mur: Juaquin Phoenix?

He: no, uh, LA Confidential.

Mur: Ah, A Beautiful Mind.

He: yeah! Anyway, he was a bad cop...		  
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TV star   
11:22pm 09/05/2008
  A story in which I accidently become a TV star of international importance.

On cool spring day, your host, WMUR, was out on a stroll, heck-bent to get to the lake to lay on lush green grass and chill out before a Friday night of partying.

A normal, average, Chicago citizen would have this leisurly stroll be full of dullness, but for WMUR, it launches a TV career. How? Read on!

I got off the train. And from the train it was three blocks to the lakefront. I could already, in my mind feel the soft grass under my feet, the blue lake flowing out for miles to my left, the towering apartment buildings sprawling for miles and miles to my right. All I had to do was walk three blocks and I was set for some chilling.

But in my ever complicated life, simple things like this turn into long divergences into the unexpected. And tonight I appeared on tv. Live TV no less. No second takes for WMUR, WMUR works in the moment, no special effects, no scripts, just raw footage. I did not dissapoint.

I got off the train, and what was there not a block away? It was a news crew, covering the top story of the 6 p.m. news. THE TOP STORY, I was not even buried in the weather forecast. The truck was parked illegally by the side of the road, the giant satellite transponder was raised to full height, and a reporter was standing there talking into a mic while a camera beamed the images into outer space for all the world to see.

And not one to miss an opportunty, WMUR strolled by the camera as the reporter talked.

Live! No second chances here! WMUR's side-of-his-head, and his back, was immediately caputered and broadcast to the homes of thousands of Chicagoland viewers.

I will have to get a tape of this, but I am pretty sure I have made an impression on the big-wigs at NBC, I will not be surprised if tomorrow a big TV contract is fed-exed to me with a big wad of cash.

And what was to be a flight to the calming serenity of a lakeshore, my dear readers, is now an immortalizsed moment that will likely be heralded in a Fallout Boy song, or a Billy Collins poem.

Just part of my rockstar life.

The end.		  
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